Bad Girls

by Rebecca Chance

  But Petal paid no attention to her mother. Growing up in Gold’s household had accustomed her to the concept that executives might give you all the encouragement in the world on a project, big smiles wreathing their faces, then turn round and cut you off at the knees with a machete, still wearing the same huge smiles.

  You don’t bitch about it. That’s how the music industry works, and that’s how TV works too. You smile back and get what you can out of them while they’re offering stuff.

  So Petal waved back at Michelle cheerfully and nudged her mother hard in the ribs as they walked past the cameras from TMZ, waiting for a celebrity sighting, and up the short steps, weaving their way through the tables to the corner of the patio where Michelle was sitting. The Ivy was one of the classic star hangouts in LA; its cute raised patio, surrounded by a white ivy-covered picket fence, with its green-painted iron tables and matching chairs with red gingham cushions, looked country-style and laid-back, but in fact provided the perfect stage for movie actors and musicians to see and be seen. Couples who wanted their new relationship to be chronicled would meet at the Ivy, sit outside and play cosy-cuddle with each other, feeding each other food, giggling playfully for the benefit of the paparazzi.

  Michelle was sitting with another woman, who she introduced as Jenny Bui. The two VH1 executives were very similar: both lean as whippets from daily crack-of-dawn spinning and boxercise classes, their hair pulled back from their faces, their makeup minimal, wearing tight-fitting black T-shirts and jeans, their teeth so perfect that Petal automatically ran her tongue over her own in embarrassment.

  ‘So nice to meet you!’ Jenny said, pumping hands with great enthusiasm. ‘I met both of you at the launch party, of course, but there were so many people there, you probably don’t remember. Petal! I love your hair! And your look! It’s so London!’

  ‘Oh, I love London,’ Michelle sighed, as they all sat down. ‘Swinging London! Those red buses, and ohmigod, the black cabs! Groovy, baby!’

  Jenny nodded vigorously in agreement. ‘It’s a total trip,’ she said.

  Petal plastered a smile to her face and kept it there.

  ‘Yeah, London’s really cool,’ she said. ‘There’s a brilliant music scene. In fact, my boyfriend’s in this really great band. KillBuzz. Have you heard of it? They’re about to go massive.’

  ‘KillBuzz?’ Jenny turned to Michelle. ‘Have you . . .?’

  Michelle shook her head and put the palms of her hands together, pantomiming a prayer for forgiveness. ‘Sorry!’ she said, tilting her head in apology. ‘We’re on the TV side. We’re not, you know, the young hip gunslingers who are totally up with all the latest bands.’

  ‘We’re really a pair of old ladies,’ Jenny chimed in, tilting her head to echo Michelle’s and smiling to indicate that she was joking.

  The thing is, they do look old to me, Petal thought. I mean, they must be nearly forty . . .

  But she managed a merry laugh and an eye-roll that seemed successfully to convince Michelle and Jenny that the idea of them being considered old was laughable.

  ‘And I love your accent,’ Jenny added, leaning forward. ‘America goes crazy for British accents.’

  ‘Totally,’ Michelle nodded. ‘In fact, I think one of the mistakes we made on Cougar Hunt –’ she looked at Linda for the first time – ‘was not getting Linda to bring out her British accent more! And slang words – we love British slang over here!’

  She looked at Linda expectantly, but Linda’s tightly pulled face was blank.

  ‘You mean like rhyming slang?’ Linda asked finally. ‘Apples and pears? Me old china?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ Jenny glanced quickly at Michelle, her face falling, ‘not exactly . . .’

  Petal had a sudden stroke of inspiration. ‘I know just what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘Do you know what “snog” means? Or “shag”?’

  Michelle and Jenny shook their heads in unison.

  ‘Oh, no, wait!’ Michelle said eagerly. ‘Is “shag” like a haircut?’

  ‘Or carpet?’ Jenny said.

  ‘Nope,’ Petal said, sitting back, preparing to sell herself and her Englishness with everything she had to these bizarre Americans. ‘It’s sex. If you shag someone, you have sex with them. But, if you snog someone, you’re just kissing them.’

  ‘Ooh! You don’t want to get those two muddled up!’ Michelle crowed, clapping her hands.

  ‘But then,’ Petal said, on a roll now, ‘there’s a very rude word that sounds really like snog and shag. So you have to be really careful not to muddle that one up. It’s slag.’

  ‘Slag,’ Michelle and Jenny chorused, their eyes sparkling.

  ‘Yeah.’ Petal was having a hard time not giggling now. ‘It means someone who’s really easy. You know, puts it about a lot.’

  She could hear her accent becoming a parody of itself, like an actor auditioning to play a Cockney who was playing it up too much in an effort to convince the director that they could do the part; but Michelle and Jenny were eating it up with a spoon. The broader her accent got, the more they leaned towards her.

  ‘Like a ho,’ Jenny said, looking at Michelle.

  ‘Yeah. It’s like a ho over here. Which is a really funny word to us,’ Petal said, deadpan, ‘because in England, a hoe is, like, a tool you use for gardening.’

  ‘Ohmigod! Hilarious!’ Michelle clapped her hands again. ‘You’re, like, really funny!’

  ‘And I love your look,’ Jenny added. ‘Did I say that already?’

  ‘Ladies?’ A ridiculously good-looking waiter hovered at Jenny’s shoulder, proffering menus. ‘I came over earlier, but you looked like you were having such a good time that I didn’t want to interrupt – OK to give you the menus now?’

  ‘Sure!’ Jenny said enthusiastically. ‘I could get a bite to eat – what about you, Michelle?’

  ‘Totally,’ Michelle agreed, smiling at Petal. ‘Do you like Cajun food? They do nice Cajun here. Or pasta.’

  Like you ever eat pasta, Petal thought, looking at Michelle’s whip-thin figure. But hey, if they’re buying us dinner, that means they’re keen . . .

  ‘Lovely!’ she said. ‘Isn’t that nice, Mum?’ She kicked Linda under the table. ‘Mum and I are really strangers to each other,’ she added. ‘We’re just getting to know each other again. It’s pretty bloody weird, I can tell you.’

  ‘Yeah, it is,’ Linda said, duly prompted.

  ‘Pretty bloody weird!’ Michelle echoed happily. ‘That’s so funny!’ She took the menu and put it down without looking at it. ‘I’ll just have the Caesar salad, low-fat dressing on the side,’ she said automatically. ‘And a Bellini.’

  ‘I say, Michelle! A Bellini! That’s pretty bloody weird!’ Jenny said, in the worst British accent Petal had ever heard.

  ‘Oh, go snog me!’ Michelle said, giggling madly.

  These people are insane, Petal thought, taking her floral-covered menu. But hey, if it gets me and Mum a TV show, I’ll give them all the damn British slang they want.

  ‘Hey,’ she said to Michelle and Jenny. ‘Do you know what the word “prat” means? Or “twat”?’

  They shook their heads, eyes wide in anticipation.

  ‘Well,’ Petal said cheerfully, ‘brace yourselves . . .’

  Amber

  ‘Oh my God! Boe môj!’ Slava was practically hyperventilating with excitement.

  If I didn’t know better by now, I’d tell her to take a pill and calm down, Amber thought drily.

  ‘He’s here! At our house! Joe Jeffreys is at our house!’

  Rushing to the mirror with a surprising turn of speed, Slava patted her already perfectly coiffed hair, making sure there wasn’t anything out of place. Then she turned to look at Amber.

  ‘Smart,’ she said distractedly, ‘you look smart, that’s good – like a girlfriend, someone he can take out to have dinner with—’

  ‘Matka!’ Amber rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not dating Joe! This is not a date! We’re going to Cascabel f
or Brian’s leaving ceremony! We’re all going to cry a lot and talk about really personal stuff In fact, it’s exactly the opposite of what you’re supposed to do on a date,’ she added. ‘That’s a joke. You can laugh now.’ But she didn’t really expect her mother to get it. ‘And if I were going on a date with Joe,’ she continued, ‘it would be pretty bad of me, considering Tony’s paying for the roof over our head.’

  Slava waved Amber’s moral concerns away with one swift downward flap of her hand. Adjusting her pearls, she scurried to the door.

  ‘I come to meet him,’ she said decidedly. ‘This I must see with my own two eyes.’

  Amber glanced at herself in the mirror. Slava had been right, she was very smartly dressed, in a Diane von Furstenberg silk crepe wrap dress in a dark green jungle print, which she’d cinched at the waist with a wide brown leather belt. Gold chandelier earrings dangled almost to her shoulders, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, smooth as silk, to show off her perfect bone structure. Her brown Prada kitten-heel peep-toe shoes matched her belt, and her lightly tanned legs were bare. She could have been going to lunch with royalty, or a celebrity wedding.

  But her destination was much more important than either of those. She was going to see Dr Raf again, and she could barely breathe with excitement. Ever since Daniyel’s phone call two days ago, setting up this reunion, Amber’s anticipation had been building, and now it was at fever pitch.

  Slava was already scampering down the steps to the courtyard, where Joe’s black stretch Hummer was parked, the driver standing by the passenger door, ready to open it for Amber. He looked doubtfully at Slava, as if nervous that she would try to climb in too.

  Oh, Matka. Amber felt a wave of fondness for Slava well up inside her. Seeing her usually composed mother as starstruck as a teenager touched her unexpectedly, making her want to give Slava the kind of gigantic hug that her mother – always careful of getting her hair crushed – would certainly not have appreciated. Amber followed Slava out to the courtyard; the driver’s face brightened instantly at the sight of Amber, who could not have looked a more suitable companion for his extremely famous boss.

  ‘Miss Peters? Please,’ he said, pulling open the passenger door.

  ‘Hey, honey!’ Joe called from inside. ‘Hop on in!’

  ‘Joe . . .’ Amber put her head in. ‘Could you just say hi to my mother? I think she’s dying to meet you.’

  Joe Jeffreys was nothing if not a gentleman when it came to elderly ladies in general, and mothers in particular.

  ‘Mrs Peters! Very nice to meet you!’ Joe said, jumping out of the Hummer and enveloping Slava’s hands in his huge ones. ‘I can see where Amber got her looks from!’

  ‘Actually, no,’ Slava corrected him, blinking up at the blinding sight of over six foot of blond, blue-eyed, strongly muscled Hollywood action star. ‘Amber’s father was very handsome. That is why Amber is so beautiful. She looks like a Slovak girl, yes. That is me. But the beauty, not.’

  Joe’s jaw dropped at Slava’s paralysing frankness. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You’re a toughie, Mrs Peters.’

  ‘Slovak people, they tell things like they are,’ Slava said proudly.

  ‘I can see that! Well, it was a pleasure to meet you,’ Joe said, releasing her hands.

  ‘You too.’ Slava nodded at him approvingly, her narrow lips curving in a genuine smile. ‘They say actors are not so handsome when you meet them. Not true for you. You are more handsome.’

  ‘You’ll have me blushing, Mrs Peters,’ Joe said amiably, glancing for a moment in amusement at his driver, who was grinning openly now. ‘See you again, I hope. Amber, honey, shall we get going?’

  He handed Amber up into the Hummer and swung himself back in, taking a seat next to her as she looked around, assessing her surroundings: four huge black leather seats, facing each other in pairs, with sunken tables between each pair, and a bar running along the far side of the Hummer, blocking the door on that side. The seat was ridiculously comfortable, so deep that it was like sinking into the most luxurious beanbag in the world.

  ‘They’re recliners,’ Joe said smugly. ‘I had ’em installed. Here.’

  He reached over and flipped up one of the arms of Amber’s seat, revealing a control panel that might have come straight from NASA. Joe hit a button; Amber squealed as the back of her chair tipped back and a footrest shot up beneath her legs.

  ‘You want a massage?’ he asked, grinning at her reaction. ‘Hell, who doesn’t?’

  He tapped two more buttons. Under the heavy leather of the seat upholstery, a series of wheels started to move, running up and down Amber’s spine, tapping at her shoulder blades, easing out her lower back.

  ‘It’s like those ones they have in the pedicure places,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Only much fancier.’

  ‘Wow,’ Amber said, closing her eyes in bliss as her vertebrae stretched out under the pressure of the chair mechanism. The Hummer pulled out of the courtyard, its nose dipping as it negotiated slowly down the steep slope of the hill to Laurel Canyon Boulevard. ‘I’d just drive around all day if I had this.’

  ‘You know, since this whole thing blew up in the papers, I’ve been doing just that,’ Joe said. ‘This is my sneaky secret transportation. I drive my Prius to the studio, jump in this baby and then I can go where I want without the paps catching me.’ He tapped on the windows. ‘Total blackout from the outside. They can’t see in.’ He grinned. ‘Couple of days ago, I drove to Vegas. Got a private room, played some poker, kicked back. It was great.’ He stretched back in his seat. ‘Good system, eh? Means I can sneak back to Cascabel for Brian’s last day. I wouldn’t’ve wanted to miss that. Brian’s a good kid. I just needed to figure out a way that the papers can’t get wind of it.’

  ‘It’s very nice of you to bother,’ Amber said. ‘I know it’ll mean a lot to Brian. He really looked up to you.’

  Joe winced. ‘I feel shitty about being there under false pretences,’ he admitted. ‘And then, everything that happened – it’s the least I could do, coming back for him.’

  Most people as famous as Joe would walk away and never look back, Amber thought. Joe’s a really good guy.

  ‘And I kind of like the idea anyway,’ Joe added. ‘I mean, I didn’t even get to say goodbye to anyone. That was a real shame. This way we get to do the thing right.’ He grinned. ‘Get some closure, as the shrinks say.’

  ‘Daniyel said everyone from our group’s coming,’ Amber said. ‘Even Petal. Brian asked for everyone to be there.’

  ‘That’s pretty brave of Petal,’ Joe said, grinning. ‘Considering there are plenty of people who’ll be wanting to rip her a new one. I can’t wait to see what Skye says to her.’

  Amber glanced at him, trying to gauge his feelings about Skye. ‘Are you looking forward to seeing her? Skye, I mean,’ she prompted.

  ‘Yeah! Cool! She’s a great girl.’ Joe smiled reminiscently. ‘We had us a lot of fun.’

  Amber waited to see if Joe would say anything more about Skye, but instead he cleared his throat and went on a little awkwardly: ‘Honey, I need to ask you something. I’ve been kind of worried about your situation, and now I’ve seen you’re still living with your mom . . .’ He ran one hand through his thick hair. ‘D’you think that’s a great idea? How are you doing with what Dr Raf would call retaining your sobriety?’

  Amber clicked off the massage programme and swung round in the chair to look at Joe properly. His handsome face was full of concern.

  ‘I know it’s not ideal that I’m still living with her,’ she said simply. ‘But I have a lot of stuff to work out. I’ve got an entire life to put together – I have to sort out some way to take care of her, for a start. I’m going to meetings every day, and to a therapist Dr Raf found for me. But if I try to do everything at once, I’m scared I’ll freak myself out, and that will endanger my sobriety.’

  Joe nodded slowly. ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it, but I get it. Your mom still popping pills like s
omething out of Valley of the Dolls?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Amber said wryly. ‘That’ll never change.’

  Joe sighed. ‘That’s why I wanted to set you up with Jeff Ringquist,’ he said. ‘Get you some paying work. Give you some income of your own, so you can move out.’ He grinned. ‘Jeff said you nailed the audition.’

  ‘It wasn’t that different to shooting a commercial,’ Amber admitted. ‘I tried not to think too much about what I was doing.’

  Joe burst out laughing. ‘You’re a natural!’ he said cheerfully. ‘You know that’s the hardest thing of all – not thinking too much about it. Just get out there and do it. Most people get stuck in their own heads. They over-think their line readings.’

  ‘I suppose I’m lucky,’ Amber said, giggling. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had the problem of thinking too much.’

  ‘Me neither, baby!’ Joe said, roaring with laughter now. ‘Secret of my success!’

  He popped a button on his own control panel, tipping up the footrest and stretching out on it luxuriantly.

  I want to talk to him about Skye and the audition, Amber thought, but before she could speak, Joe was saying: ‘Amber, babe, you get that I’m locked into this whole situation with Jennifer, don’t you?’ He groaned. ‘Y’know, I look back and ask myself what the hell I was thinking, agreeing to the setup. But Carmen – that’s my publicist, and Jennifer’s publicist – she and Jennifer are an item, you know. Long-term. Been together for years.’ He grinned. ‘Women, eh? You ladies are much better at settling down. Anyway, this is perfect for them. Jennifer gets me to cover up the rumours, she’s got Carmen to boff, and the movie makes boatloads of money, which means she can finally make this little indie script she’s been dying to do for years. Thinks it’ll snag her an Oscar. She plays a blind girl with MS who dies, or something.’

  He spread his hands wide as the Hummer turned onto the freeway.

  ‘But me? What do I get out of it, apart from the boatloads of money? Not only am I not getting laid – if I even try, I get a ton of crap raining down on me!’ He sighed again. ‘Carmen suckered me in. I swear, that woman’s really good at what she does.’